Sunset Boulevard (2 page)

"Can you say BarfBarf?"

Barnsley Toole's nasal voice rang in Jojo Milford's ears--and not because she was imagining

things. BHH's halls were alive with the sound of retching. Her retching. The video of her

yakking on that tool Barnsley was on all her classmates' cell phones, and the interest hadn't

waned. She'd hidden in the nurse's office during homeroom, and even kindly old Nurse

Jannings had asked, "You're not going to get sick again, are you, dear?" Jojo couldn't believe

Nurse Jannings even knew what YouTube was.

Pulling the hood of her Roxy sweatshirt over her shoulder-length walnut-colored hair, Jojo

zipped through the crowded halls to her locker, avoiding eye contact with everyone she passed

and praying she wouldn't walk into a wall or something. Not that she could really make her

situation much worse.

Which wasn't to say that her situation couldn't get any worse on its own. Her gray metal locker

was painted with bright red letters:
BarfBarf Spew Zone--Beware!

For what felt like the billionth time that week, Jojo found herself thinking,
If only I'd gone to

Greenland
. Her adoptive fathers, Fred and Bradley--the only parents she'd ever known--were

spending the year there on sabbatical. She'd almost gone with them, until her dads received a

call from her
biological
parents, Barkley Everhart and Lailah Barton--aka Barbar, the world's

most famous and adored couple. They'd finally found Jojo and invited her to stay with them.

Within a few days, she'd said goodbye to Sacramento and her two professor dads and hello to

Hollywood. So far it had been with disastrous results.

Jojo licked her finger and attempted to wipe away the cruel words on her locker. But her spit

had no impact, and the nasty scrawled letters swam before her eyes. She spun the dial on her

combination lock, trying to focus on the click of the numbers instead of the murmurs

surrounding her in the hallway. Even the tabloids had been nicer to her in her "time of heave"

than her fellow BHH students.
Us Weekly
had mentioned the video, but chalked up Jojo's

retching to food poisoning. People said her inability to hold a drink was proof she was too

sweet and innocent for the Hollywood life. Even the usually scandal-hungry
Star
said that

Jojo's drink had been drugged. But at BHH, everyone knew and relished the facts: Here she

was, a Sacramento imposter in their beautiful world, who'd drunk wayyy past her limit and

fallen victim to Barnsley Toole's lame come-ons, all of which had been captured on tape at

Lewis's party and would later air on Barnsley's MTV show,
Barnsley's Babes
. If she were her

sister Myla Everhart, her fellow students wouldn't dare be so overt in mocking her. She knew

rumors about Myla kissing the equally douchey Lewis Buford were circling, but only in

hushed, deferential tones. Apparently, it took more than being the child of the world's most

famous couple to earn your wings at this place.

"Aw, poor BarfBarf got a wittle note on her locker." Rod Stegerson, surrounded by some of

his BHH football teammates, sauntered past. His meaty red face, close-cropped brass-colored

hair, and short, thick neck made him look like a less handsome version of the orange brick guy

from
Fantastic Four
. Jojo glared toward him.

"Why the dirty look?" Rod paused. "'Cause you'll never get a piece of the Rod? Sorry,

BarfBarf, I like to kiss with tongue, not chunks."

"So it's true that steroids shrink your brain," Jojo mumbled, annoyed that a jock's lame dis

could prompt an instant stress knot to form beneath her shoulder blades. Rod waved her off.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response." He turned his hulking shoulders away

from her, and he and his crew strutted down the hall. Jojo shrank toward her locker, making

one more attempt to wipe away the offending words with her sleeve, to no avail.

Feeling powerless, she hefted her backpack onto her shoulder, almost glad the class would be

kept busy with a pig dissection in biology, and spotted Jacob Porter-Goldsmith and his friend

Miles Abelson rolling an AV cart down the hall. She'd met Jacob, who, she remembered,

preferred to be called Jake, in the computer lab on her second day here, and so far he was the

only person who'd been nice to her. Jojo moved in front of her locker, wishing she'd worn

heels so her head would hide the writing at the very top of her locker.

Jake smiled and gestured to Miles to wait as he moved toward Jojo through the emptying

hallway. A few students in distressed denim shot Jake derisive looks with each
swoosh-

swoosh
of his brown cords. Third period was about to start.

"Hey, how are you doing?" he asked shyly, self-consciously running a hand through his messy

curls.

Jojo gestured to her locker, smiling a little at his sweet concern. "Oh, I'm awesome. Who knew

you could be instantly well-known around here just by losing your lunch on a D-list

wannabe?" Jojo grimaced at the idea of just how "famous" she was. Her best friend from

Sacramento, Willa Barnes, had texted her shortly after Barnsley's video was leaked online, to

say that she and the soccer team had seen the whole awful event and were pulling for her. Jake

grinned. "Like I said before, this will pass. Give it a few days." It was the same advice he'd

given Jojo a few weeks ago, when Myla had been spreading lies about her. Unfortunately, this

time what everyone was saying was true. "Trust me, BHH will move on to something else.

Maybe even me."

Jojo smirked a little at this. Even though he was adorable, with his ruffled curls and lean,

muscular body, Jake was mostly invisible to the BHH student body. Probably because he had

no idea how cute he was. The key to popularity, if Myla was any indication, was confidence-even cockiness. "Maybe, but it seems like the gossip wheel keeps landing on me." In her first

weeks here, Myla had made Jojo's life a living hell with one nasty rumor after another. The

focus had shifted briefly when Myla turned her fury on her ex, Ash Gilmour, telling people

that he was a chronic bed-wetter. Now the wheel of misfortune was back on Jojo, but it wasn't

Myla's doing. After Saturday's terrible party, Jojo and Myla had a bond, if a tenuous one. "This

is so not like JFK--my old high school, in Sacramento. I swear, you can't even graduate from

here without mastering the art of gossip."

"I'm flunking out, then," Jake said, his hazel eyes dancing. "Was JFK some kind of clique-free

utopia?"

"I don't know. Kids could be mean, I guess. But they weren't so organized about it. Let's put it

this way, Justin Klatch, who is basically the coolest, hottest guy ever to walk the halls of JFK,

would be crucified at this place." Jojo flashed to an image of Justin's all-American boy face.

He'd be eaten alive here. In fact, at BHH, Jojo would probably have a shot with him.

Jacob patted Jojo's arm awkwardly. "I doubt my classmates would ever elect me their

spokesperson, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry people are such assholes around here. Miles,

too."

Miles, hearing his name, gave a mock salute. "Aye, aye, sir." He pushed his glasses back up

the bridge of his long nose. The kids at BHH called him McNothin' because he resembled

McLovin' from
Superbad
. Jojo thought he looked more like a stretched-out, preteen Paul Rudd.

Jojo let loose a chuckle, for what felt like the first time in days. She felt her mood lighten from

pitch-black to foggy gray. "Thanks, Jake. You too, Miles."

Miles nodded dutifully. "I'm working on an asshole cure," he said, rubbing his hands together

like a mad scientist. "I'll let you know when it's ready."

Jake rolled his eyes at Miles's joke, nodding his head toward Jojo's locker. "I see people are

leaving you notes."

Jojo blushed. "It's nothing."

"Everything's spelled correctly," he said. "So at least we know Rod's not a suspect." He

paused. "Hold on a sec." He jogged to the cart and opened a plastic Tupperware container,

grabbing some kind of cloth and a spray bottle.

"It won't come off, I tried." Jojo sighed. "It's permanent."

Jake shook his head. "You're talking to an expert here," he said. "Ma'am, please step aside," he

commanded in a fake cop voice.

He sprayed the substance liberally over the red paint, then rubbed it vigorously with the cloth.

The letters instantly faded, leaving just a faint ghost behind. "I had 'I Want My Mommy'

written on mine for a whole day before I realized it was just pep club wax pencil," Jake

explained, admiring his work. "Kids here don't want to risk a real vandalism charge. Some

warm soapy water on a paper towel will get the residue off."

"Thanks. That's gotta go right in your high school karma bank." Jojo hugged Jake excitedly

before she realized what she was doing.

Jake blushed. "Like my mom says, I'm saving for college." He shrugged, his dorky orange

polo stretching across his athletic shoulders.

"For real, you're my hero," Jojo said, smiling up at him. "You should try out for the
Class

Angel
guy." Jojo could totally picture Jake in the movie as a good-natured, all-American guy,

which was what the casting memo distributed in first period had said they were looking for.

Tryouts were today in the library.

"I'm waiting on a call from Spielberg," he joked, backing away in Miles's direction. With a final

salute, he and Miles set off down the hall.

Jojo hung back, touching the almost-invisible letters on her locker and watching Jake retreat

down the hall. Before he and Miles turned the corner, Jake looked back, and--with a sweet

grin--waved at Jojo.

Who knew an unlikely hero could be so likable?

CASTAWAYS AND CALCULUS

As Amelie Adams' town car pulled to a stop on the circular drive in front of Beverly Hills

High, she would have sworn the sweet scent of teenage freedom was wafting up from its

perfectly manicured front lawn. A courier had arrived yesterday with new script pages for her

movie,
Class Angel
, and instructions to report to BHH today for a partial reshoot. They were

only reshooting about half the scenes, which meant they'd only spend a week or two at BHH.

But for Amelie, it meant getting to feel like a real teenager, at a
real
high school. After years of

tutors instead of teachers, agents instead of friends, and scripts instead of homework, Amelie

was ready for a little dose of high school reality.

She hopped out of the town car before the driver had even unhooked his seat belt. She was Tminus ten seconds from seeing Hunter Sparks again, and nothing was going to slow her down.

What seemed like mere hours before, Hunter had dropped her off from a party in the

Hollywood Hills, uttering words that had circled Amelie's mind all weekend:
"You need

someone like me to look out for you. Because, honestly, there are a lot of guys out there--guys

like me, who can't resist you. And you're too good for us."
After weeks of crushing on him-okay, months and years--but thinking he saw her as nothing but a little sister, the words had

given her all the hope she needed. Hope that right now pushed her toward the school library,

where they were shooting their first scene.

She swung open the front doors of BHH, her heels clicking against the immaculate ivory tile